This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.

Rio de Janeiro is to host the first Olympic Games in South America. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge made the announcement in Copenhagen today, to the bitter humiliation of Barack Obama.

The U.S. president was embarrassed on the world stage after the IOC rejected his very personal bid for the 2016 Olympic Games to be hosted in his home town of Chicago.

Olympic Snub For Obama As Chicago Eliminated From 2016 Bid ["Public Humiliation"] London Times

President Barack Obama learnt a harsh lesson about the politics of sport today after Chicago made a shock early exit in the race to become the host of the 2016 Olympics.

The members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) delivered a clear message to the American President and his wife that their 8,000-mile journey to court their vote in person had been a waste of time.

In the first round of voting in Copenhagen to decide among the four bidding cities, it was Chicago and not Tokyo that fell out of contention, leaving Rio de Janeiro and Madrid to fight out the Latin vote in a gripping finale.

The stunned silence among the crowd gathered in Daley plaza in Chicago to celebrate what they expected to be a run-away victory symbolised the unbelieving reaction of America that the IOC members could deliver such a public humiliation.

Game over, home team lost: the U.S. won just 18 votes in the first round of IOC voting, and was knocked out in the first round. And suddenly the president was being pummeled by the right for a frivolous use of political capital—especially in the Weekly Standard, which not only blasted Obama for his failure, but anticipated that the mainstream press corps would not take the defeat seriously.

“The media is faced with three facts as a result of Obama’s embarrassing failure in Copenhagen.

1) The failure itself. 2) The incompetence. 3) The lack of persuasive ability. There’s nothing ideological about any of these items,” wrote Fred Barnes.

OK, so it is only the Olympics. But President Barack Obama's high-profile failure to win the games for Chicago could feed negative narratives already nipping at his heels — that he is a better talker than deal closer, more celebrity than statesman.

And this could hamper his efforts on weightier issues like health care, climate change, war.

Despite Obama's fabled charm and powers of persuasion, his in-person plea for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Games fell flat. It was a hugely embarrassing defeat.

His adopted hometown — considered the front-runner heading into Friday's voting — did not just lose, it took last place, shocking nearly all by getting knocked out in the first round while the remaining three contenders duked it out.

... Axelrod blamed the internal machinations of the International Olympic Committee for the rejection.

He argued that the bid by Madrid was led by a former president of the IOC, who was calling in years' worth of favors, and that Rio de Janeiro, trying to become the first South American host, had a strong case as well. The IOC ended up choosing Rio to host the 2016 Summer Games.

"I don't view this as a repudiation of the president or the first lady," he said. "I think there are politics everywhere, and there were politics inside that room..."

Laid nights with David Letterman (Dave paid law school tuition for office paramour)NY Post

He brought her up from coffee-fetcher to personal assistant to on-air personality -- and then she inadvertently brought him down.

The woman at the center of David Letterman's stunning late night mea culpa is his former assistant, Stephanie Birkitt, a vivacious 34-year-old highlighted blonde who started out as an intern, became his assistant -- and then his office paramour, sources said yesterday.

In a bombshell on-air confession Thursday, Letterman, 62, admitted to having bedded a number of his female staffers over the years.

October 2, 2009 If this happened to anyone else, it would just be a punch line.

David Letterman, who built his career skewering philandering politicians and show business “weasels” and “boneheads,” finds himself in the middle of his own celebrity scandal, after he admitted having multiple affairs with employees of his production company, Worldwide Pants.

For the intensely private Mr. Letterman, the revelations, which resulted from a bizarre extortion attempt, are sure to be extremely embarrassing, especially as he tries to extend his lead in the late-night contest.

”I have had sex with women who work for me on this show,” he told his audience on Thursday night, calling himself “creepy.” He added that he hoped “to protect my job.”

More seriously, they raised questions for both his company and CBS about whether his actions constituted sexual harassment or at least abuse of a power relationship over employees.

A central figure in the case — one of the women who did have a sexual relationship with Mr. Letterman, according to representatives of the show — is Mr. Letterman’s longtime personal assistant, Stephanie Birkitt, who also often appeared on the air.

ACORN news is not news to The corrupt MSM. Shhh, Obama and the Democrats won elctions with their help. Keep that under your tinfoil hat. ---ACORN Plans Massive LayoffsBigGovernment.com by Matthew Vadum

A credible source claims the embattled left-wing advocacy group ACORN is poised to announce massive staff layoffs but an ACORN spokesman denies this is the case. A credible source close to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now revealed that the activist network intends to lay off all staff members operating out of its New Orleans headquarters. All information provided by the source to this reporter in the past has turned out to be correct.

Walt Disney Co., looking to rein in costs at its Hollywood studio as it focuses on mainstream movies, is slashing staff by 70% at its Miramax Films specialty label and is substantially reducing the number of pictures it releases.

The retrenchment, which has been foreshadowed in Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger's strategy to emphasize family and "branded" films, comes quickly on the heels of the recent ouster of former Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook.

The former movie chief left abruptly last month under pressure from Iger, who had been unhappy with the studio's direction and performance.

Nothing new, she didn't hear Rev. Wright demean 'Whitey' for twenty years either. The thought of her as a big yellow bird setting on her father's lap is a hoot. The IOC got a good laugh if nothing else.

President Barack Obama's failed bid to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago cost more than a bruised ego. Taxpayers shelled out probably $1 million or more for the president, his wife and others to fly to Copenhagen and back to woo members of the International Olympic Committee.

I don't trust ACORN or AARP-----Obamacare: Cut the Elderly and Give to AARP

Townhall.com Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Among the $500 billion in Medicare cuts that will provide the bulk of the financing for Obama's health care plan is a $160 billion to $180billion cut in the Medicare Advantage program, which offers a range of benefits not available to beneficiaries under basic Medicare. Medicare Advantage should be Obama's favorite program. It combines all the elements he likes -- premiums are subsidized for low-income elderly, and the companies negotiate low-priced, managed care that emphasizes prevention, treatment of chronic conditions and coordination among doctors. As a result, its costs on the one hand and its premiums on the other...

If you did not support the president's trip to Denmark to lobby for the Olympics coming to Chicago, you are an unpatriotic moron. If you opposed bring the games here, you hate America. Those are the deep thoughts brought to us by the netnuts in blogdom and even the White House

Anyone who has had to sit through a gender studies class or listened to someone who has will tell you that many feminists consider sex, when there is a wide difference in power between the two involved, is a form of rape.

I am waiting for NOW and the assorted gender warriors at the utero- studies departments to express concern about Letterman's treatment of subordinate women.

Straight from Chicago radio: Oprah was allowed to shut down three blocks of Michigan Avenue for three days while taping her big block party TV show. In trade, she would go to Denmark with Daley using her star power to promote the Olympics.

Oprah like Obama ignores black crime in Chicago. Hey man, looking at the bigger picture requires flash and dash, and blinders. Obama is a piker when it comes to charitable contributions, and Oprah throws some money at things in front of the cameras, but left to others, her projects falter. Some black ministers are calling for Obama and Oprah to do the right thing. Both reap the rewards of capitalism while they wish socialism on everyone else. Let them be the first two to give all their wealth to poor people. MOO

If POTUS & FLOTUS go to Copenhagen but the Official White House Photostream doesn't include it, did it really happen? Why would the White House exclude this wonderful, fantastic, fantabulous, super-d-dooper, "The Ego Has Landed" moment? From the White House Flickr page: [PICTURES AT SITE] (Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net via: FreeRepublic.com

At least, that's what it would have been called by Republicans if Dems had done this during the Bush administration. Eric Kleefeld at TPMDC:

• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is visiting Honduras in order to support the recent military coup against a leftist president, which has been opposed by the Obama administration and all the surrounding countries in the region. (Late Update: DeMint's office says he is not taking sides during his visit to the current Honduran leadership, denying the New York Times reports that this was his intention.)

• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be going to the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, bringing a "Truth Squad" to tell foreign officials there that the American government will not take any action: "Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate."

• House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel, where he spoke out against President Obama's opposition to expanded settlements. He also defended Israel on the eviction of two Arab families from a house in east Jerusalem, which had been criticized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials not to trust America's budget numbers. "One of the messages I had -- because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor," said Kirk, "is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed." Since then, he has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate.

As Kleefeld points out, these aren't just overseas junkets, these Republicans aren't only creating their own version of foreign policy, they are acting on it by traveling overeas and directly undermining official U.S. policy. The only similar situation that comes to mind under the Bush administration was when Reps. David Bonior, Jim McDermott, and Mike Thompson visited Iraq prior to the American invasion. Prior to the invasion. They came back convinced that there were no WMD in Iraq, and that the Bush administration was hellbent on taking us into that war, anyway. And they were, and continue to be excoriated by the Right for that trip.

Here we have Republican members of Congress directly undermining American diplomacy. Where are the great patriots among the Republican party or in the punditocracy now?

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